The final $1.1 trillion spending bill being negotiated in Congress will be a massive 1,000+ page of legislation that few people will read. In addition to funding government through next year, the must-pass bill is likely to contain dozens of provisions that would otherwise be difficult to pass.
A new Rasmussen Poll finds 70 percent of Republican voters saying they believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President.
A new poll of New Hampshire Republicans finds Donald Trump still leading the crowded field, but by only 1 point.
Trump leads the Republican field with 38.6 percent support, followed closely by Cruz, who had the support of 32.9 percent of poll respondents. Together, the two outsider candidates command more than 70 percent support from Citizens United grass roots activists.
As Congress rushes to complete its work for the year, Capitol Hill is locked up with negotiations over a final spending bill and legislation to renew a host of tax credits and subsidies.
Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country has elicited widespread condemnations from the media, Democrats and most establishment Republicans. The most recent Pew survey of Muslim attitudes around the world, however, suggests that heightened scrutiny of Muslim immigrants is warranted.
A June poll of Muslims living in the United States found a significant minority supporting the use of violence against those who “offend” Islam. Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, which commissioned the poll, appeared on CNN Tuesday to discuss the survey and recent proposals to curtail Muslim immigration to the U.S.
Stephen Koff, Washington Bureau Chief for the Cleveland Plain Dealer has been trying to interview Democrat Senate candidate Ted Strickland about his views on gun control in light of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino.
A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concludes that ObamaCare will reduce the labor supply by 2 million workers below what it would have been without the health care overhaul.
This latest CNN poll, obviously, is a snapshot of the current standings in the Presidential race. More interesting is the dramatic drop in Hillary Clinton’s support over the fall. In some cases, she has lost more than 20 points relative to her Republican challengers.
The economy added a modest 211,000 jobs in November, in line with economists’ expectations. The jobs report, released Friday, clears the final hurdle before the Federal Reserve takes its expected step to gradually increase interest rates at its next meeting on December 16.
The bill provides just over $200 billion over 5 years for highway and road construction. The legislation also diverts $48 billion out of the highway trust fund to spend on mass transit. The majority of the funding for the bill comes from revenue from the federal gas tax. In recent years, however, Congress’ spending needs have outpaced revenues from the gas tax. Compromise on spending is considerably easier when more money is added.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders in Congress are putting the final touches on a massive omnibus spending bill that will fund the federal government until after the presidential election.
The GOP could broaden its appeal among black and Hispanic voters if it embraced legislation to counter “climate change,” says a writer published by the Washington Post.
The Institute of Supply Management’s PMI Index, a composite of several economic indicators, showed manufacturing slipped to 48.6 in November, well below October’s 50.1 reading. A reading below 50 indicates contraction within the manufacturing sector.
Left out of most news reports is the fact that carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions have been falling in the United States. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon emissions in the U.S. have fallen 10.2 percent in the last decade. This fact flies against oceans of rhetoric about the U.S. continuing to pump carbon into the atmosphere absent government action.
The latest Reuters tracking poll shows neurosurgeon Ben Carson jumping back into 2nd place in the race for the GOP nomination.
Consumer spending is always driven by a certain amount of hype, but the barrage of Black Friday events, sales and deals belongs in its own alternate reality. Sales can only be as good as the underlying economy. On that fundamental, this year’s retail sales picture looks bleak. For at least the past six years, the actual economy has almost always turned out to be weaker than the markets, analysts or the Fed have believed.
Pundits expected the terrorist attacks in Paris to shove the GOP’s primary race towards national-security debates and to boost the experienced pols, including Sen. Marco Rubio.
Under the new estimate, the economy grew by 2.1 percent in the July-September period, slightly higher than the 1.5 percent growth originally reported. The increase, though, was driven by a build up in business inventories, suggesting potentially weaker growth to end the year.
In the 2016 presidential election, the Democrat Party’s fortunes, and those of frontrunner Hillary Clinton, are inexorably tied to President Obama’s handling of the growing crisis in the Middle East. The contest for the Republican nomination, meanwhile, is going through a major reshuffling that will likely winnow the currently crowded field.
Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton loses outright against six possible Republican candidates. Clinton and a seventh possible GOP candidate, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, split the vote with 42 percent each. Clinton trails all other candidates, never receiving more than 43 percent of the vote in the survey,
It is not unheard of for news organizations to make mistakes in their reporting. It is unusual, though, for a news organization to hire a PR flack whose specialty is beating back unflattering stories or pushing attacks on his opposition. Most news organizations don’t aspire to need a staffer permanently assigned to defend its reporting. Politico apparently thinks it does.
Officials with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were in regular contact with progressive activists over proposed regulations targeting the payday lending industry, recently released emails reveal.
On Friday, a SuperPAC tied to Ohio Governor John Kasich announced a new multi-million dollar effort to torpedo Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination. Trump’s continued dominance of national and state-level polling has vexed the GOP establishment and pushed it to near-panic as voting nears.
Congress is preparing legislation to add new security requirements for Syrian refugees seeking entry into the United States. The proposed legislation wouldn’t suspend, eliminate or substantively alter the program, but would require certain federal officials to personally verify that an individual refugee has been properly screened. Rest assured, Republicans in Congress are absolutely committed to reforming the refugee resettlement program. Just as long, mind you, as they don’t actually have to do it.
Trump’s steps to qualify for the ballot in Virginia suggest he has a robust political operation on the ground. Many political insiders continue to dismiss Trump’s candidacy on the assumption that it is built on his larger-than-life personality alone. Being the first candidate to navigate Virginia’s strict requirements, though, seems to indicate that Trump is building just such an organization. It is a concrete sign that Trump’s candidacy isn’t going away anytime soon.
With just two months until the first votes are cast for the Republican nomination, though, that match-up is still just a fantasy. For four months, the Republican nomination battle has been dominated by Donald Trump and, to a lesser extent, Ben Carson. Together, these two command the support of a majority of Republican voters. Rubio and Cruz, while gaining support in the past two weeks, still only have around 10 percent of support each nationally.
The persistent strength of outsider candidates in the Republican nomination fight is due, in large part, to a feeling that the establishment party is out of touch with the public. The cavalier attitude of much of the Republican party to the problem of illegal immigration is no phantom menace. It rings hollow to large sections of the public who are living on the edge of economic anxiety.
New Hampshire GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte is facing a tough reelection fight next year, as Republicans battle to retain control of the U.S. Senate. Her path to reelection could become impossible, however, if the state’s Republican legislature goes through with a plan to reauthorize ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion in the state.
Millions of packages shipped into the country through national post offices aren’t being screened by U.S. Customs. Packages sent through private carriers, including FedEx and UPS, are screened, but the failure of the Postal Service and other international public-sector postal services to screen packages presents an unparalleled security risk at a time of heightened terrorist activity.
Jeb Bush’s latest campaign reboot, “Jeb Can Fix It,” seeks to highlight his record as Governor of the Sunshine State. Unfortunately for Jeb, however, whatever accomplishments he had as Governor seem like ancient history. He left the Governor’s mansion almost a decade ago and was last on the ballot in Florida 13 years ago. With just a fifth place showing in this latest poll of Florida, it seems Jeb will have to spend considerable energy reminding the state’s own voters about his record as Governor.
Whether the economy, health care, environment or a host of issues, more voters disapprove of how Obama is handling issues than approve. The breadth of issues where President Obama is upside down with voters is unprecedented. The issues where voters disapprove of President Obama’s job performance are: Abortion, the War in Afghanistan, the budget deficit, the economy, education, the environment, foreign policy, gun control, health care, immigration, Medicare, Social Security, taxes and terrorism.
An Economist/YouGov survey finds Republican voters overwhelmingly prefer Donald Trump’s position on immigration to that of his rivals. Some 49 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents say Trump is the candidate best able to handle the issue of immigration. Republicans’ preference for Trump on the issue is so overwhelming one pauses to remember that he is running against a crowded field of competitors.
One of the clear distinctions in the debate was on the issue of illegal immigration, where businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz argued for strict border controls while establishment-backed candidates Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich appealed to emotion and politic. Perhaps the most interesting exchanges on illegal immigration were those that didn’t occur. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whose Presidential campaign has been shadowed by his support of the Gang of Eight Senate amnesty bill, demurred from mentioning the issue.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham will not be part of the Republican debate on Milwaukee on Tuesday. Polling less than 1 percent nationally, Graham didn’t make the cut for even the undercard of the Fox Business/Wall Street Journal GOP debate.
The House-passed version of a $325 billion Highway Bill, legislation to fund the nation’s infrastructure, is pending in the Senate. It includes a rebirth of the Ex-Im Bank.
The GOP-led House has attached the almost-dead Export-Import to the must-pass, six-year extension of the Highway Bill, likely resurrecting the bank from extinction
Houston voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative aimed at instituting sweeping new “anti-discrimination” laws, primarily aimed at sexual orientation and gender identity. Setting aside whether or not the proposed new law had any merit, the reaction of supporters to the loss tells us a lot about the state of the left today.
With less than 90 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has edged past Donald Trump in an well-regarded index of national polls.
